Friday, September 18, 2015

Venice Film Festival 2015: Barefoot Refugees On The Red Carpet

WORLD FILM BEAT: Dennis Broe On Location Report

This is Broe on the World Film Beat, live
from the Lido, with my coverage of the Venice Film Festival. The big
story on the opening of the festival this year the way the rivalry
between the major studios and the online services, becoming studios
themselves, played out on the Lido. Venice had led off the last two
years with the Academy Award Winners Gravity and Birdman, both of which
were anointed at the festival and went on to easily sweep the awards.
This year the major studio opening was Everest with Jake Gyllenhaal
whose film Demolition also opened the Toronto fest. This alpine snoozer
is not going to win the Academy Award, and even festival director
Alberto Barbera described it as a film that had ‘great special effects,’
the kiss of death because it implies ‘and nothing else,’ which is the
way most critics judged the film.LISTEN TO THE COVERAGE HERE

Going head to head with the studio
powerhouse opening was Netflix’s Beasts of No Nation. Netflix did not
produce the film, merely picked it up for distribution as the majors
often do, planning on distributing mainly not in theaters but to its 67
million subscribers. The mode of distribution is very different with the
streaming service claiming it never looks at box office numbers. The
major theaters have refused to pick up the film for its October 16th
release, judging it a threat to their industry but it will be released
in Mark Cuban’s Landmark theaters where it will qualify for the Academy
Awards....

...This is Broe on the World Film Beat
signing off from the Lido. Next week, in time for their foray into
cinemas this fall, I’ll be discussing my best and worst, including Tsai
Ming Ling’s extraordinary bow out of filmmaking and the non-return of
Johnny Depp.

Arts Express, Thursdays 2pm ET: Airing on WBAI Radio in NY 99.5 FM, and streaming live and archived everywhere atwbai.org.